What Color Is Your Parachute?

It was the epoch of belief,
It was the epoch of incredulity,
It was the season of light,
It was the season of darkness,
It was the spring of hope,
It was the winter of despair,
We had everything before us,
We had nothing before us,
We were all going direct to heaven,
We were all going direct the other way…

CHARLES DICKENS (1812–1870)

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

CHAPTER 1 How to Find Hope

If we had such a thing as a national bumper-sticker for our cars, the bumper-sticker of the year would be: “I’m out of work, I can’t find a job, and I’ve tried everything.”

Of course not everyone would display it; some 139,000,000 people in the U.S. have jobs, after all. But some 15,000,000 do not. And 6,000,000 of them would display it for longer than twenty-seven months. That’s how many have currently been out of work that long. Just here in the U.S. Beyond these shores, well, tragically high unemployment is a worldwide problem, as we have seen throughout the Middle East this year, and other restless nations of the world.

Everywhere we go, these days, we hear this cry: “I’ve been out of work forever, and I can’t find a job, no matter how hard I try.” And we do try hard. Often in vain. We are thrown out of work, we go looking for work the way we always used to, but this time we come up empty. This is a brand new experience for many of us. And one that we didn’t see coming. Nothing works. Unemployment drags on.

This shakes us emotionally to our core, and often leads to a plunge in our self-esteem. Those twins, depression and despair, frequently follow hard on its heels. Life feels like it is never going to get any better. This feels like forever. (I know. Like any normal American, I’ve been thrown out of work twice in my life. It was not fun.)

What do we need?

Well, we desperately need a job. Of course.

But more than that, while we are out of work we desperately, desperately, need Hope.

THE KEY TO FINDING HOPE

Experts have discovered, over the years, what is the key to Hope. And it is just this: Hope requires that, in every situation, we have at least two alternatives.

Not just one way to describe ourselves, but two ways, at least.

Not just one way to hunt for a job, but two ways, at least.

Not just one kind of job to hunt for, but two kinds of jobs, at least.

Not just one size company to go after, but two sizes, at least.

Not just one place we really would like to work at, but two places, at least.

And so on. And so forth.

In order to have Hope while you are out of work, you have to make sure that in every situation you find yourself, you’re not putting all your eggs in just one basket.

To have only one plan, one option, is a sure recipe for despair. I’ll give you a simple example. In a study of 100 job-hunters who were using only one method to hunt for a job, typically 51 abandoned their search by the second month. That’s more than half of them. They lost Hope. On the other hand, of 100 job-hunters who were using two or more different ways of hunting for a job, typically only 31 of them abandoned their search by the second month. That’s less than one-third of them.

The latter kept going because they had Hope. And so this truth should always be on your mind:

If you are to hold on to Hope you must determine to always have at least two alternatives, in everything that you are doing while looking for work.

A LIST OF JOB-FINDING ALTERNATIVES

Just to be sure we’re “choosing cards from a full deck,” let’s rehearse what are the alternative options we have, when we’re out of work. There are eighteen different ways of looking for work. You probably know many of them, but just for the sake of completeness, let’s list them all. They are:

1. Self-Inventory. You do a thorough self-inventory of the transferable skills and knowledges that you most enjoy using, so you can define to yourself just exactly what it is you have to offer the world, and exactly what job(s) you would most like to find.

2. The Internet. 82 percent of Americans now go online, for an average of nineteen hours per week apiece. If you’re among them, and your goal is to work for someone else, you use the Internet to post your resume and/or to look for employers’ “job-postings” (vacancies) on the employer’s own website or elsewhere (with omnibus job-search sites such as Indeed or SimplyHired, and of course specific “job-boards” such as CareerBuilder, Yahoo/Hot Jobs, Monster, LinkUp, Hound, “niche sites” for particular industries [see www.internetinc.com/job-search- websites for a directory], and non-job sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or the immensely popular Craigslist). If, on the contrary, you’re considering working for yourself, you use the Internet to learn how to do this, how to establish your brand, and how to get the word out to a wider audience as to just what you have to offer.

3. Networking. You ask friends, family, or people in the community for “job-leads” (rhymes with “Bob reads”). There are two ways of doing this, one sort of blah, one really useful. In the first case, you use the lame “I lost my job; if you hear of anything, let me know,” which leaves your network completely baffled as to what you’re looking for, unless it’s same old same old of what you’ve always done. Far better way: after using method #1 above, you tell them in specific detail what you mean by “anything.” And then see how close they can come to that.

4. School. School means high school, trade schools, online schools, community colleges, four-year colleges, or universities. You ask a former professor or teacher or your career/alumni office at schools that you attended if they have any job-leads.

5. The Feds. You go to your local federal/state unemployment service office, or to their OneStop career centers (directory at www.careeronestop.org) to get instruction on